This invention relates to a program selection method and apparatus using a cordless telephone set, and more particularly to a program selection method and apparatus wherein a remote commander and a cordless telephone set are formed as a unitary member so as to allow selection of a program.
In recent years, electronic apparatus such as a television receiver, a video cassette recorder (VCR), a video disk player and a compact disk player have propagated, and those electronic apparatus are constructed so that they can be remotely controlled by respective remote commanders for exclusive use. As a result, the number of kinds of remote commanders has so increased that, in order to control each electronic apparatus, it is necessary to search a corresponding remote commander first and then search and manually operate a button corresponding to a predetermined function of the remote commander, -and thus there is a problem to be solved in that the operability is low.
Thus, a related art apparatus wherein a function of a remote commander is added to a cordless telephone set is disclosed in, for example, Japanese Patent Laid-open No Hei 2-31545. According to the related art apparatus, since an electronic apparatus can be controlled using a cordless telephone set, the number of remote commanders in a home can be reduced.
How ever, in the related art disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-open No. Hei 2-31545 mentioned above, in order to select a predetermined program broadcast, for example, by television broadcasting, numeric keys provided on a cordless telephone set are manually operated to merely input a channel number, and there is a problem to be solved in that it is difficult to select a desired program from among a large number of programs rapidly and with certainty.
For example, in the United States of America, the number of broadcasting channels has increased in a cable television (CATV) system or a digital direct satellite broadcasting system (DSS: Digital Satellite System, a trademark of Hughes Communications) applying a high efficiency coding technique such as the MPEG (Moving Picture Experts Group). As a result of an increase in number of channels, the number of broadcasting channels have increased to 150 to 200.
Also in Japan, a digital television broadcast is being planned. If a digital television broadcast becomes available, then a very large number of television programs can be broadcast.
Where a program is selected from among such a large number of programs by inputting a numeral representing a broadcasting channel of the program, it is difficult to select a desired program rapidly with certainty, intuitively and directly.